The system of universal service has been established longer in Germany than in any other State, and can best be explained by an account of its working in that country.  In Germany every man becomes liable to military service on his seventeenth birthday, and remains liable until he is turned forty-five.  The German army, therefore, theoretically includes all German citizens between the ages of seventeen and forty-five, but the liability is not enforced before the age of twenty nor after the age of thirty-nine, except in case of some supreme emergency.  Young men under twenty, and men between thirty-nine and forty-five, belong to the Landsturm.  They are subjected to no training, and would not be called upon to fight except in the last extremity.  Every year all the young men who have reached their twentieth birthday are mustered and classified.  Those who are not found strong enough for military service are divided into three grades, of which one is dismissed as unfit; a second is excused from training and enrolled in the Landsturm; while a third, whose physical defects are minor and perhaps temporary, is told off to a supplementary reserve, of which some members receive a short training.  Of those selected as fit for service a few thousand are told off to the navy, the remainder pass into the army and join the colours.

The soldiers thus obtained serve in the ranks of the army for two years if assigned to the infantry, field artillery, or engineers, and for three years if assigned to the cavalry or horse artillery.  At the expiration of the two or three years they pass into the reserve of the standing army, in which they remain until the age of twenty-seven, that is, for five years in the case of the infantry and engineers, and for four years in the case of the cavalry and horse artillery.  At twenty-seven all alike cease to belong to the standing army, and pass into the Landwehr, to which they continue to belong to the age of thirty-nine.  The necessity to serve for at least two years with the colours is modified in the case of young men who have reached a certain standard of education, and who engage to clothe, feed, equip, and in the mounted arms to mount themselves.  These men are called “one year volunteers,” and are allowed to pass into the reserve of the standing army at the expiration of one year with the colours.

In the year 1906, 511,000 young men were mustered, and of these 275,000 were passed into the standing army, 55,000 of them being one year volunteers.  The men in any year so passed into the army form an annual class, and the standing army at any time is made up, in the infantry, of two annual classes, and in the cavalry and horse artillery of three annual classes.  In case of war, the army of first line would be made up by adding to the two or three annual classes already with the colours the four or five annual classes forming the reserve, that is, altogether seven annual classes.  Each of these classes would